Unilever

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT UNILEVER - PAGE 5

MUMBAI: Unilever group CEO Patrick Cescau had one cryptic but telling message for India as a market. "I want India to be for Unilever what China has been for the other company," he said in an oblique reference to the role India's giant Asian neighbour has played in the fortunes of Procter & Gamble, Lever's great rival. In his second visit to India after taking over as CEO, Mr Cescau was aggressive, confident, and gung-ho about opportunities in the world's second fastest-growing economy.

GUWAHATI: Unilever may make Northeast as the production hub for its subsidiaries in Southeast Asia, once the land route to Asian tigers from India, through Myanmar, put in place. Vice chairman of Hindustan Lever, M K Sharma told ET here that the low cost of production in the HLL unit in NE, as compared to SE Asia, might lure the parent organisation to outsource. Incidentally, land trade with Myanmar through Moreh in Manipur is already operational since 2000. Now the efforts are on to utilise Asian highway network for land trade with SE Asia.

GUWAHATI: Unilever may make Northeast as the production hub for its subsidiaries in Southeast Asia, once the land route to Asian tigers from India, through Myanmar, put in place. Vice chairman of Hindustan Lever, M K Sharma told ET here that the low cost of production in the HLL unit in NE, as compared to SE Asia, might lure the parent organisation to outsource. Incidentally, land trade with Myanmar through Moreh in Manipur is already operational since 2000. Now the efforts are on to utilise Asian highway network for land trade with SE Asia.

Patrick Cescau has spent his entire career in Unilever, holding posts across markets, an experience which helped a great deal when he took over in 2005. The focus has been to create the 'One Unilever' structure and design a strategy to improve efficiency, business margins and back categories with resources wherever necessary. Health and nutrition and emerging markets are key areas of focus within the group. He spoke to Kala Vijayraghavan and Bodhisatva Ganguli You have been credited with the transformation at Unilever from a dual management led, complex bureaucratic system to a more unified simpler structure focused on delivering in-the-market execution.

ATLANTA: Unilever, the maker of Dove soap, agreed to buy Sara Lee's personal-care and European detergent unit for e1.28 billion ($1.88 billion), gaining Sanex shower gel in its biggest purchase in nine years. Unilever, based in London and Rotterdam, will pay cash for the business, which makes Duschdas and Radox soap and had sales of more than e750 million for the year ending June 2009, according to a statement on Friday. Sara Lee, which has been shedding units to focus on coffee and food, said the proceeds would help it buy back as much as $1 billion in stock.

The Uhuru Peak of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is 19,341 feet above sea level. In September 2005, a group of 27 climbers, eight of them blind, attempted an ascent to the summit. Among this group was Paul Polman , who, after the climb, gravitated towards the educational needs of blind, underprivileged children across eastern Africa. The Kilimanjaro Blind Trust (KBT) thus came into being. Polman has since become the CEO of Unilever, the 44.3 billion euro Anglo-Dutch foods and consumer goods giant, but he continues to engage with the KBT. Polman now wants to climb another peak: turning a leviathan multinational, which is doing business largely the conventional way, into a sustainability champion, in sync with society's needs, aspirations and challenges.

MUMBAI: Consumer products major Unilever is introducing nutritional food labelling across its subsidiaries the world over as part of a project to encourage employees to eat healthy and lose weight. Food available at the canteen will be labelled for calories, sugar, fat and salt. The move is the result of a year-long health pilot in the UK which resulted in clear benefits to employees and the business. Unilever saved £300,000 over the past two years as a result of the health and well-being programme, termed The Lamplighter Project , which was designed to improve nutrition and fitness of employees.

LONDON: Unilever is cutting its research and development centres in Europe from 64 sites all over Europe to just six centres of excellence, in order to provide the focus and critical mass for its delivery of innovations and new products in foods. The move is part of the consumer goods company's One Unilever programme. The move will see about 240 job losses, and another 260 additional jobs will be relocated across Europe. The new look centres of excellence will focus on new product development and innovations for both the European and global market.

MUMBAI: Tata Tea today said that it has evolved a strategy to compete globally with Coca Cola, Pepsi and Unilever in the beverages business. Unveiling a 5-15-year roadmap to create a global leader in the branded beverages segment, Tata Tea CEO Peter Unsworth said that the company may look at partnerships and acquisitions for this purpose but as of now there is no proposal. In recession time, all companies are under pressure but Tata Tea has shown resilience because of its core business being tea and coffee, he said, adding the company was in the process of integrating the working of its five entities to deliver economies of scale.